Unlocking, seeking, push my fingers through the gap,
searching for a surface on the space that is emerging,
listening for a rhythm that the life beyond is turning,
Morning
Mourning
Passing in the crack that now chases round the birthing,
Straining to a place where the edges fight the blurring,
To prey
To pray
Holding to the difference of a heart beginning beating,
Rushing to embrace what may be only fleeting,
A piece
A peace
The sound of rain falling in the deep night is a reminder that every now and then the world needs washing. The dirty streets littered with our selfish striving and strewn with the harshest words, dropped casually during the day, need to be cleaned. Hopes forcibly squeezed out and dreams stolen wait to be washed into drains, longing to be recycled and fed back in sleep’s stories. Prayers of the ones no longer here descend to rattle against our walls and fences, some seep through gaps and splits to water shoots of memory. Fall night rain fall.
We are only people,
We tie our hands to straining beasts,
That promise only stretching goals,
Elastic expectations, Self imposed.
We cannot reach, We are no good.
We fail at what we set ourselves,
We cannot measure up.
So stop and sit and be.
And hear the voice inside release.
Let go the ropes that pull,
The one tied to what was,
The one tied to what won’t,
The one tied to the other you,
That whips the fear within.
Sit and share the tears and tears.
Stop and sit and be.
We are only people.
Ripping and shredding,
Torn from the top,
Wilfully separated,
On the altar of “Us”.
Sinfully split.
Painfully parted.
Barriers bolted and raised to the roof,
Lines strongly marked in the dust of the floor,
Cemented, constructed,
dividing, defined.
We built the walls,
we tore the flesh.
We pushed them over and slammed shut the gate!
We raised the flags.
We sang the songs.
We became us,
So they became them.
And now as we wane and struggle for breath,
We open the gates and we wave,
And we “save”.
We sure up our towers,
We repaint our walls,
We gild bright our faces,
And say, “look what we’ve got!”
I dream of contrition,
Of bloody, bent knee.
Of humble demolition,
Fading power released.
Father forgive us,
We know not what we’ve done!
When she looked she saw the same old view,
Different faces, even different places,
But still the same.
Still the same.
The breath inside her drove up and out in a sad exhalation,
Unplanned, unconscious, unthinking,
disappointingly irresistible.
Again they told her things have changed,
Its a brand new world, glitter strewn and crisp.
Whatabout, they said, remember when.
But she saw nothing fresh,
she looked hard, so hard,
there it was, not what she wanted to see, but there.
But we dreamed, she cried, we hoped,
You claimed to be on our side, we stood together.
Be patient, you said, the time will come.
But when?
But when?
The pictures that I paint myself in the sleepless dark,
Keep building, resolving, repeating,
brush strokes finding one another,
Testing and reapplying,
with no light to shine upon the stretching surface.
No way to see the edges.
Or touch the gilded frame.
In the deep alone again,
stories twitch and nag for attention,
Poetry forming, shaping,
answering this days unmentionables,
Layering pregnant verses,
That in the seeping dawn deep drain.
The story’s happy ending gone,
A night of grappling angels,
Leaving only aches and waste,
Nothing but the bruises,
and the grief of certainty.
Another sleepless night,
Another dreaming black,
Another carried scar.
Tomorrow rest may come.
PICTURA POESIS 